Warrior Goddess 3 - Cybertron and Beyond
by White Aster
Summary: Peace is never perfect...but it's close. With the wars over, Cybertronians rest, rebuild, repopulate...and a new Cybertronian Golden Age dawns. (This is the third part of the Warrior Goddess arc, including the dawn of Cybertron's second Golden Age.)
1. Warrior Goddess 3 Notes

**Notes: **

- Please note that this story is the third part of the Warrior Goddess arc and builds heavily on events from previous fics in the Warrior Goddess series.

- This fic and the Warrior Goddess arc in general is being written out of chronological sequence and will also be posted out of chronological sequence. As a result, if you read everything as it is posted, you will be skipping about in the timeline and possibly spoilered for events that are not yet written. If you would rather read the story without "spoilers" from later chapters, please consider following only the first story in the series (Warrior Goddess 1 - Earth) and checking out each chapter as it is posted for its position in the timeline before reading.

- For an overview (and spoilerrific) timeline of the ENTIRE Warrior Goddess arc, including far-future events, please see the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1.


	2. Music

**Notes:**

This story is set around ~300,000AD. The Cybertronians have returned to Cybertron. Cybertron itself is now orbiting a star, and the Cybertronians have begun the first stretch of peace and prosperity in a long, long time. As they rebuild, Mikaela is working as an aide to Integrus Prime and is known to most Cybertronians as "Firebrand".

Please see the timeline in the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1 if you'd like more info on how all this comes about (warning, the timeline gives spoilers for the entire Warrior Goddess story arc.)

* * *

><p>Downloading the mid-twenty-first-century Internet had been one of her best ideas ever.<p>

At the time, it had just been easiest. She'd been heading out with Bee, escorting what turned out to be the last shipload of humans to the colony on Gliese. The entire round-trip was to take about 5 Earth years, and she'd thought that having the Internet in her head would have her pretty covered as far as entertainment went. Evidently it was a thing that Cybertronians often did, and it might have even been Bee's suggestion.

Later, when they'd returned to find Earth a barren wasteland, having the entirety of Earth's knowledge in her 'banks, easily searchable, had been a bittersweet gift. She'd not been able to bear looking at it too much for many years, but eventually, she'd been able to go back to it, browse through it, mine it for information and entertainment that she'd not taken advantage of before.

And the music. God, the music.

She'd never have thought, when she was 16, that she'd go through a phase where both Icelandic death metal and classical harp would be on her go-to playlist, but after you hit a few centuries old...all the stuff you liked before got a bit stale.

And as time went by and she moved about as they all did-the Exploration Force, Unicron, the Scythe, then Cybertron-she had done what most Cybertronians did when they were stuck together for long stretches of time: she'd dumped her entire entertainment folder into the ship/base database. This was, she knew, directly responsible for Thundercracker's love of Bach and the entirety of the Scythe's crew coding their own FPS mods to play in their spare time. (She'd been amused to no end when she realized that alien space warrior robots were essentially using their incredibly advanced battle processors to run gaming console emulators.)

It was also, she was pretty sure, responsible for how Earth music leaked into the budding Cybertronian music scene.

Which was why she slowed, then rolled to a stop in front of a newly-opened club, solely because her audials picking up something that she was pretty sure was very remixed circa-2014 neo-soul, overlaid with some distinctly Cybertronian instrumentation that almost (on purpose or by accident) made it extremely j-pop-like. She grinned, bounced on her wheels a bit, and eventually drove on, humming to herself.

Life went on, and she was, as usual, incredibly busy, but she had time to get on the datanet and see what was hopping on the Cybertronian music scene. She was tickled to find yet more Earth music mashups, and it was several dozen downloads of those that led her to Breakbeat. Which was why she recognized the name when he showed up on the petitioner queue. Which was why she put him on Integrus' schedule.

Which was why Integrus, not knowing any of this, was very confused by Breakbeat's request.

"You wish...to play music at the festival?"

Mikaela knew how Integrus sounded: blank, impersonal, definitely unenthused. Breakbeat, no doubt, didn't realize what Mikaela knew: that that was just Integrus, not understanding. Breakbeat wilted in the face of the apparent rejection, the young mech's vocalizations growing soft with hesitancy. "...yes...sir?"

Mikaela shot Integrus a private comm. ::Say yes.::

::?:: Integrus sent.

::Say yes, Integrus. Say yes, or I will abandon you here with an unupdated schedule and four committee meetings in the next cycle.::

That got her a slightly amused response. ::You feel very strongly about this?::

::YES. They are making MUSIC again.:: She dove into the datanet to dig up Breakbeat's file. ::Breakbeat was an artist, but he spent two megavorn as an Autobot sniper, then another thousand vorn being chased by Unicron like the rest of us, then another hundred vorn helping to rebuild, and for the first time in ALL THAT TIME, he can make music again. He's here because he's the head of an entire ENCLAVE of musicians who spend their free time doing something just because they love it. They have FREE TIME for the first time in megavorn. They've had to learn to rebuild instruments from memory and ancient specs, and some they scrapped and just made NEW ones. It's ART, Integrus. They're making Cybertronian music for the first time in MEGAVORN. It's the first bit of Cybertronian culture in all that time that isn't about war and destruction and survival. It's art and music and there is no better sign of an advanced civilization, and you should be ENCOURAGING this.::

Breakbeat's optics were sliding from Integrus to Mikaela, unsure what the conversation was about.

Integrus's helm tilted toward Mikaela in consideration. ::A very human point of view.::

She grinned. ::Actually, Jazz said that.::

A further helm tilt, then a leveling out and a turn back to the young musician. "You may compose a performance for the festival. To be reviewed in its entirety by the festival entertainment committee beforehand."

Breakbeat's face broke into a grin. "Yes, SIR! Thank you, Prime, you won't regret it, I promise!"

::The festival has an entertainment committee now?:: Mikaela asked, amused, as Breakbeat all but ran from the room to whooop quietly in joy as he retreated down the hall.

::Yes. You.::

She groaned. "Should've seen that coming."

"Affirmative." Integrus turned back to his screen. "Next appointment?"


	3. Raindancer

**Notes:**

This story is set around ~325,000AD. The Cybertronians have returned to Cybertron. Cybertron itself is now orbiting a star, and the Cybertronians have begun the first stretch of peace and prosperity in a long, long time. As they rebuild, Mikaela is working as an aide to Integrus Prime and is known to most Cybertronians as "Firebrand". Did I mention that she also sparked him up? She did. Raindancer is Integrus' and Firebrand's sparkling. :)

Please see the timeline in the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1 if you'd like more info on how all this comes about (warning, the timeline gives spoilers for the entire Warrior Goddess story arc.)

* * *

><p><strong>"Good Cop, Bad Cop"<strong>

Mikaela looked up from her screen, dragging her thoughts out of the conversation with Ironhide at the sound of the door opening and tiny stomping feet coming in. "Hang on a sec, 'Hide. Kiddo, it's bedtime, what are you-what is all OVER you?"

Raindancer, her tiny frame fairly VIBRATING with fury, spat angry static once, twice, stomped one foot, then...crumpled, struts slumping and vocalizer settling on a keening wail as she scrambled across the floor to leap into Mikaela's arms and latch herself firmly around her creator's waist.

"Uh. 'Hide... Let me...call you back? Ooof, easy kiddo..."

Ironhide's expression was amused. "Sparkling emergency. Understood. It can wait until tomorrow."

"Right. I'll catch you then, 'round midcycle?."

"Fine by me. Go. Deal with your crisis."

"Thanks." She cut the transmission and wrapped her arms around her keening sparkling. "Hon, hon, kiddo, what's wrong? And what..." She pulled a hand away, rubbing between her fingers the sticky gray substance that was smeared across Raindancer's plating. She blinked as her med sensors returned a laundry list of ground minerals mixed with a fortified energon base. She fought to keep herself from laughing.

Sparkling supplement. Which was, very obviously, everywhere but IN the sparkling.

Mikaela opened her and Integrus' private comm line. ::Lose something?::

She got back a stream of glyphs so fast and spiky with irritation that she couldn't even catch most of it other than the bit at the end which sounded like several unflattering variants of "stubborn", followed by a concerned and demanding "WHERE?". ::Whoa, whoa, relax. She's fine, she's in my office with me. You...couldn't tell?:: She looked down at Raindancer, who was still keening softly. She should have lit up like a beacon of distress to Integrus' telepathy.

The reply was shaded with relief, but still sharply annoyed. ::Sparkling: good defensive telepath when she doesn't want to be found..::

::Ah.:: _Man_, Mikaela thought, _Must have been one hell of a fight. Kinda glad I missed it. Oh well, good cop to the rescue!_ ::Well, I've got her. Take a break. Primes need their rest, too. She'll keel over once she's done, and she can recharge here.::

::Negative. Don't want to encourage this behavior. Important to recharge at home.:: His glyphs were a mishmash of modifiers indicating "important to sparkling development" and the simpler "important to me".

::Yeah, good point. You're so much better at this discipline thing than I am.::

::Unsurprising,:: he deadpanned, with just enough amusement to indicate that he was teasing. Mikaela sent back a rude glyph with the same amused undertone.

Raindancer had quieted, her ventilations easier and her frame no longer overheating from stress. At some point she'd climbed up into Mikaela's lap, and she still clung like a barnacle, her face turned into Mikaela's torso. "Better?" Mikaela asked.

Raindancer nodded.

"Didn't want to drink your supplement, huh?"

Raindancer shook her head.

"I don't blame you. I remember Ratchet giving it to me whenever he could find the stuff to make it. Man, it was nasty, and it wasn't even flavored like yours is." She licked a bit of the sticky supplement off her finger and made a face. "Yeah. Not much better."

Raindancer didn't say anything, her face still turned away.

"You still know you've got to drink it, right?"

"Don't want to!" Raindancer said, her voice echoing off of Mikaela's side.

"It's good for you, hon. It makes you grow up big and strong."

"Don't care! It tastes nasty!"

"So you didn't want to and you got mad and threw things, hmm?"

A low mutter sounded from Mikaela's armpit.

"What was that?"

"Didn't THROW it," Raindancer said grumpily. "Just...didn't want it and I jumped and it went all over and Integrus felt all stormy and that made ME all stormy and I yelled and-" She clutched tighter at Mikaela, her field flashing with distress again as her voice climbed. "-and Integrus HATES me!"

_Oh good lord_. Mikaela held the small blue frame as she keened softly, then pulled her gently back. "'Dancer, hon, listen to me, ok? Integrus does not hate you."

"Yes, he does!"

"NO, he doesn't. I promise."

"He was all mad, and I made a mess, and he's gonna hate me FOREVER!"

"Forever and ever, huh?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, man, that's funny, because when I talked to him he was really worried when he couldn't find you."

That derailed the drama train with a hiccup of tiny glitched vocalizer. "...really?"

"Really." Mikaela shifted, putting a finger under Raindancer's chin to tilt her head up. Raindancer's visor pulsed a sullen red. "Hon, we love you, and a little mess isn't going to change that."

"But he felt STORMY. REALLY stormy."

"I know. I know you could feel him getting mad, but just because you get a little annoyed with someone doesn't mean you hate them. Believe me, I'd have a lot fewer friends if that was true, for one. And I doubt your carrier'd put up with me, for two."

A trickle of amusement filtered through Raindancer's field, and she smiled, just a bit.

Mikaela smiled back. "There's my girl. Now, come on. I think we both need a trip to the washracks, and then you should go apologize to Integrus."

The apology would have to wait, Mikaela found, as Raindancer was already half asleep by the time she got to the dryer and fully asleep by the time Integrus arrived. ::Too late,:: Mikaela said from the couch, keeping to silent comms so as not to disturb the peacefully recharging sparkling next to her. ::Nothing like a little meltdown to tucker a sparkling out.::

Integrus vented a sigh and reached out. Mikaela handed the tiny bundle of sparkling over, and Raindancer shifted but didn't wake, burrowing into the warmth of her carrier's frame. ::She is well?:: he asked, peering at her as if to check and make sure she hadn't lost any limbs.

::Yeah, she's fine. There was a bit of drama about how you were going to Hate Her Forever, but we got that sorted out.:: Mikaela sat back down heavily on the couch.

::Sparklings.:: Integrus flickered a glyph of fond exasperation. ::Thank you. Turning around and finding her gone was...alarming.::

::I bet. It's fine. I keep feeling like I should be doing more, anyway.::

Integrus tilted his head. ::She is usually little trouble.::

That was never Mikaela's point when they had this conversation, but she knew pushing it wouldn't do any good. It was a human thing. Integrus never quite understood her feeling of responsibility for Raindancer. In Cybertronian culture, that was the carrier's place, not really the sparker's. She let the subject change. ::Except where her supplement comes in. I can't blame her. That stuff is disgusting. Honestly, we can do interstellar travel and rebuild a trashed world, but we can't make that stuff NOT taste like metal sludge?::

::It's supplement. It IS metal sludge.::

::My point still stands. Seriously, we should get Starscream on that.:: She leaned back against the cushions, feeling the tension in her back finally release. It had been a long day.

Integrus didn't look any better off, but he was used to sailing serenely past his limits. ::I'll mention it to him the next time I see him.::

::You do that.:: Mikaela grinned. ::Better yet, do it while I'm there, so I can see the look on his face.:: Her eye caught on the datapad on the side table, and her smile widened as she held it out to Integrus. ::Here. For you. She wasn't quite brave enough to want to do it face to face, but I told her to write it down.::

Watching Integrus' field change as he read was absolutely adorable. Scary Decepticon Prime, turned to puddle of creatorly goo by his sparkling's awkward but sparkfelt apology. ::I should have been more careful,:: he said, handing the datapad back. ::She's very adept at reading fields, and I let my irritation show.::

::It happens. You were both tired.::

::Primes do not get fatigued,:: Integrus replied, drawing himself up, word choices all exaggeratedly formal and condescending.

::Oh REALLY?:: she asked archly. ::Is that why you're about ready to fall over?:: It wasn't much of an exaggeration. She knew that he'd been up all the night before, preparing to address the Senate, and his glyphs were starting to revert to his original clipped grammar.

::Sparkling weight, unbalancing,.:: he said, visor turning down to look at Raindancer, who looked even tinier in his arms than she had in Mikaela's.

::Uh huh. I'm going to start building regular recharge into your schedule.::

::Unnecessary.::

::Like hell. Otherwise you'd have left by now, rather than standing there snarking at me..:: She checked her chronometer. Yeah, it was definitely time for bed. She hauled herself up. ::Come on.::

Integrus protested that it wasn't that far, that they should just go back to his quarters, but Mikaela couldn't help but notice that he followed her into the bedroom anyway. He set Raindancer down in the middle of the bed, then paused, watching her, until she vented a sigh and laid a hand on his shoulder. ::Lay DOWN. SLEEP. Honestly, you're more stubborn than SHE is.:: She flared her field, gently, pushing safety and security and her usual wordless tangle of affection at him. Pointedly, she pinged the apartment security to lock down to "the Prime's sleeping over"-level protocols.

She got a sluggish twitch of gratitude in reply, followed by the sound of transformation as he stowed his sensor panels for lying down. By the time she got to her side of the bed and laid down herself, Integrus' optics were off, his systems already powered down into recharge.

Mikaela shook her head, murmuring, "Big sparkling," at him with a really rather dangerous amount of fondness. _Better watch it, Mikaela_, she told herself, with a wry smile, _or this little strictly-business thing you two've got going might get complicated._

She snorted as she arranged herself on the mattress, curling her body around the side of the bed, so that their sparkling would sleep curled between them. Too late. WAY too late.

* * *

><p><strong>Prompt: "Etched in my skin"<strong>

"Pretty," Raindancer said. She perched on Mikaela's shoulder, one hand balanced on Mikaela's arm in an attempt to defy the laws of gravity as her small fingers traced the etching along Mikaela's shoulder and down her arm plating.

Mikaela smiled, one hand leaving her datapad to support her sparkling's curious reach. "You think so?" Raindancer trilled in absent thanks and leaned further into the support, hands reaching further down.

"Yes! Pretty!" Mikaela barely felt the pressure as Raindancer traced the gridded globe of Earth, the elongated star of exploration, the stylized winged lightning bolt of the Crackers. "Do they...do they mean things? This one means things," Raindancer said, pointing to the simplified sigil for "peace" that adorned Mikaela's upper left arm, right beneath the Earth globe.

Mikaela had to smile. As different as sparklings matured compared to human kids (being able to speak with them as soon as you could upload a language module into their processor was particularly fun), they still had to make all the usual connections between what they saw and what it actually meant. Raindancer recognized the sigil as glyph-like, knew what the original glyph meant, but wasn't quite at the point where she could recognize variations and recognize it for what it was.

"They're symbols, kiddo. Every time I did something or went somewhere that was important to me, that I wanted to remember, I made a symbol for it and etched it on."

Raindancer's reply was obviously confused. "Why?"

"So I would remember it."

"Why would you not remember important things?" Raindancer looked back at Mikaela over her shoulder, curious. "They're IMPORTANT."

Mikaela laughed. Raindancer was all of an Earth year old. She was still running off her primary memory buffer, probably hadn't even had to archive anything or understand why she might want to. "You can't think about ALL of the important things all the time, kiddo. More important things are always happening. You've got to think about other things, eventually." She rubbed a finger along Raindancer's back. She was probably getting too abstract. It didn't help that it was a complicated question.

"Look." She tapped the gridded globe on her shoulder, and Raindancer scrambled around to face it. "This one is a symbol for Earth, a planet far away. I spent a very important part of my life there. This means peace-" she used the more standard glyph that Raindancer would know "-and stands for the Long Treaty, when there was peace after the Great War. They were times that were important to me, so when I look at these, they remind me of those parts of my life."

Raindancer traced the symbol, looking from the lines up to her creator's face. "So...they're stories. Happy stories that make you smile."

She WAS smiling, Mikaela realized. "Yes. Yes, they are." She ran a finger down the Crackers symbol, a winged scythe surrounded by the six stars of fallen comrades. Her smile was bittersweet, and she wasn't sure that "happy" was the right word, but she didn't want to try to explain pain and remembrance to a tiny sparkling. 'Dancer'd learn that soon enough on her own. Looking down at the small, delicate frame, Mikaela's spark clenched. She could understand why no Cybertronian had wanted to have sparklings during the war, why it hadn't even been an issue, even as each side's numbers dwindled and they could have USED more soldiers. God, she couldn't even think of risking Raindancer getting hurt or killed.

_Oh, hi, maternal instincts_, she thought. _Nice to see you, finally._

"Tell me!" Raindancer said, scrambling down to sit on Mikaela's knee. She was heavier, now, than she'd been just a decacycle ago. "Tell me one of the stories!"

"Hey, now, what do you say when you ask for something?"

"Please! Please tell me one of your stories? Pleaaaase?" Oh god, that wide-opticked pleading look was the same no matter the species. Or maybe Raindancer'd just learned it from some of the Disney movies.

Mikaela checked her chronometer. Integrus had checked in, in his usefully neurotic way, a few breems ago. He would be there to pick up the kiddo in half a joor, tops. Totally time for a story. "All right, kiddo, but here's the deal: I tell you a story and you take your supplement for Integrus tonight with no complaining."

"Aaaaaaaw, but it tastes nasty! All gritty and bleagh!" The disgusted face she made was hilarious, but Mikaela didn't let herself smile.

"Don't care. That's the deal."

Raindancer frowned, her tiny EM field buzzing with concentration. "All right. As long as it's a GOOD story."

Mikaela laughed. "Kiddo, I ONLY tell the good stories."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Notes: <strong>She has so many tattoos, I mean etchings. Earth, the Long Peace, the star from when she was a long-range explorer looking for energon deposits during the Long Peace, and the Crackers are a Wreckers-like strike group she was in during the Unicron War. Thundercracker was their commanding officer. :D One for each of her sparked/carried kids, something for once she bonds with Integrus..._


	4. Ghosts in the Machine

**Notes: **This story is set around ~500,000AD. Cybertron is rebuilt and is well into a new age of peace, prosperity, and population growth. Mikaela is working as an aide to Integrus Prime and is known to most Cybertronians as "Firebrand".

Please see the timeline in the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1 if you'd like more info on how all this comes about (warning, the timeline gives spoilers for the entire Warrior Goddess story arc.)

See the end of the chapter for more notes.

* * *

><p>"Excuse me?"<p>

Nimbus cleared the game she was playing behind her optics and looked up a bit guiltily. It wasn't that she was slacking off, she assured herself. It was just that she could only clean up and input Silvertower's translation data into the network for so many joors before her processor turned to so much slag. It was part of the reason she had moved to the hallway window rather than stay in the office. Here, at least, she could use the campus grounds as a background for a nice game of Fallblock when the X'trxan tonal shifts and glottal stops all became too much.

The mech that had interrupted her was a bright splash of sleek red against the gray halls. Much bigger than Nimbus was (which wasn't that hard to accomplish) with a warrior's armor plating and two cannons set along the back of her (the voice had been femme-high) arms. Her face reminded Nimbus of one of the xenobiologists: fine-plated to allow for complicated facial expressions when dealing with organics. Said face was set in a smile, and Nimbus cocked her head, sending a glyph of polite greeting. ::Yes? Can I help you?::

The mech switched to nonverbal, overlaid with polite inquiry. ::I hope so. I'm here to see Silvertower, but there's no one in his office.::

::Oh!:: Nimbus underlined her words with apology. ::He must have stepped out. He said that he was seeing multiple people today. Perhaps he went to visit Phaseshift. Do you have an appointment?::

::No, not really. I contacted him this morning about some data, but he said I should just come by...:: The mech was looking down the hall toward Silvertower's office, transmission trailing off distractedly. She moved her head from side to side, hands coming up in some gesture that Nimbus had to query her databanks to identify as confusion, Earthen, pre-Exodus. She perked a bit, eyes taking in the mech more closely. Obviously this was another researcher, perhaps a xenobiologist. The mech's frame was odd for a scientist, but one never knew what one would discover on unknown worlds, and from what Farseeker had told her, no one went out unarmed who knew what was good for them.

Nimbus had to admit that she kind of admired mechs with weaponry. In a purely professional sense, of course. Small-framed and built for quick processing as she was, weaponry and how to use it was a completely different kind of knowledge than she'd ever have without an overhaul.

Nimbus pinged herself back to attention. ::I can open up the office, and you can wait in there, if you'd like? I'm Nimbus, by the way. I'm Silvertower's assistant. Or, I could ping him to see where he is...::

Swift negation, with overtones of understanding patience. ::I don't want to bother him. I can wait. Thank you, Nimbus. I'm Firebrand.::

::It's nice to meet you.:: Nimbus hopped down from the windowseat she'd been curled in and headed back down the hall. Firebrand might have been intimidating (she came barely to Firebrand's hipjoint) if Nimbus wasn't used to Silvertower's looming presence. Firebrand's strides were much heavier than the researcher's though, her entire movement full of the deeper clank of duryllium rather than the ring of plasteel or any of the lighter metals Nimbus was used to. ::Do you work for the Academy?::

::What? Oh, no, no.:: Amusement danced along the edges of Firebrand's reply. ::I'm no researcher, that's for sure.::

::Oh! Exploration Force, then?::

Firebrand hesitated, no clue in glyph or word, and Nimbus looked up at her, eyes caught by the barrel of Firebrand's armcannon. She sent a hasty glyph of apology. ::I'm prying. I'm sorry. I do that all the time. It's just in my nature...::

Firebrand looked down at her, smiling. ::YOU are obviously a researcher.::

Nimbus' facial plating wasn't such that she could smile, but she flickered her optics in laughter and punctuated her reply with cheerful glyphs indicating a shared joke. ::Oh, spark-deep! I'm a linguist. Well, training to be a linguist, though Silvertower keeps trying to corrupt me into adding on xenopsychology.::

::I can see how they'd intersect.::

Nimbus tossed up a glyph of indecision as she keyed open Silvertower's office. She winced at the piles of datapads and artifacts to be sorted that seemed to BREED whenever she left the office alone for five breems. ::So can I, but it'd be another three meta-cycles of study, and well...I'm kind of impatient.::

Firebrand laughed. ::I can definitely understand that. I could never sit still for school at all.::

The word she used, "school", wasn't Cybertronian, and Nimbus' dictionaries pulled it up as "place of learning", Earthen, pre-Exodus. It was an odd word to drop into conversation, and Nimbus was just about to pry more when she heard a familiar dull chime of chromed plasteel echoing down the hall. The small mech leaned back out of the office and caught sight of Silvertower's tall form striding down the hall. Nimbus tossed a quick ::Hi, boss. You've got a visitor. Firebrand?:: at the same time as she notified Firebrand that Silvertower was coming.

::Ah, good.:: Silvertower's comm was underlined with his usual complicated glyphwork: anticipation and eagerness layered on top of curiousity. ::I was wondering if she would show up. She says she has some Earthen data I might be interested in. Perhaps it'll inspire you away from cold linguistics...:: he teased.

She sent back the glyph for their usual shared joke: linguistics over xenopsychology. ::Not likely, boss.:: Nimbus turned back to Firebrand. ::It was nice talking with you.::

::Same here,:: Firebrand said. ::Thank you.::

Nimbus stood aside as Silvertower bent slightly to get through the doorway into his office, then trotted back to her windowseat to get back to the X'trxan. Inspire her, indeed, she thought with a mental negation. Nimbus much preferred LIVING cultures.

* * *

><p>"Thank you for coming," Silvertower said, folding his limbs into his chair. "I'm sorry that I kept you waiting. I hope that my assistant wasn't clogging your processor with her chatter."<p>

Firebrand sat in the hastily-cleared chair that he'd offered her. "Not at all. And please, waiting is what I get for not giving you a time. I'm glad I didn't, actually, as I was in a meeting that ran later than I thought could even be possible."

Silvertower offered a glyph of kinship-understanding over amused exasperation. "As one who has sat through many, many faculty meetings, you have my sympathies." He folded his hands over his chestplates, leaning back in his seat. "So, you said you have some data you wish to submit to the Xenology Department for archiving?"

"Yes. It's..." The mech shifted, expression uncomfortable, almost nervous. "To be honest, I'm not even sure if you'll want it. It's not really research. More...raw data. A lot of it's not sorted through or in depth, but...well. A friend of mine suggested that your department might be interested in it."

Despite her warrior's frame, her hesitance made her sound young. Silvertower sent a glyph for reassurance, with the overtone of certainty that he found calmed nervous students. "Oh, I don't doubt that we'll be interested. We have so little on Earth culture, anything would be a boon. It's a shame, really. So many mechs stayed so long on Earth during the Faction War, but most weren't researchers to begin with, and then, well...the Unicron War took so much from us."

Firebrand shuttered her optics briefly, comm channel flickering with the sign for "remembrance". "Yes. I...I'm no researcher, but when I realized that we'd have to abandon Earth, when I realized what was going to happen...I just couldn't let it all die. I had to do SOMETHING."

Silvertower replayed her words to fully grasp the implications a few times before saying slowly, "You were on Earth during the Faction Wars?"

"Yes."

"I see." SIlvertower set his processor on a query, but it came back negative: no one named Firebrand had ever studied at the Academy, nor was listed as having been one of those sent to seek the Allspark. Odd, though perhaps she had not had any higher education? Most likely she had changed her name for one reason or another, as so many had during the wars. He regretted his slightly condescending comparison of her to a student. Veterans of the wars deserved respect. He bowed slightly. "My department will no doubt thank you for whatever you wish to give us, but I thank you, personally, for your service. I was sparked during the Long Treaty." He underscored the statement with a formal line of glyphs used to honor military heroes.

Firebrand looked up, surprised, shifting uncomfortably. "Thank you." Embarrassment turned to visible amusement, and when he sent a wordless query, she chuckled and replied, "It's just that you remind me so much of one of my old teachers. I didn't realize that I was older than you."

It was an odd distinction to call out, physical age being relatively irrelevant, but Silvertower didn't bother mentioning it. "So, what can we do for you? A mess of data, yes? What kind of subjects?"

"A...bit of everything. Culture. Languages. History. Science, though primitive enough to be useless as anything but history, now. Uh...a rather embarrassing amount of entertainment... Well, here, you can see." Firebrand pulled a chunky external memoryblock from subspace and handed it to him.

Silvertower slotted it into his desk terminal. It held one large file, and he felt his optics slowly fix in shock as the contents scrolled across his screen.

He'd expected her to have a few scraps, as so many military mechs who'd served on Earth did. Nearly all had since cleared out their memory to defrag and free up space and had kept only tidbits of information: a language here or there, cultural relics that they had particularly liked, things that they had found amusing.

The block Firebrand had given him was only a DIRECTORY LISTING. It had millions of directories, TRILLIONS of files, and Silvertower's terminal was still counting them. They were all labeled in human alphabets, completely unconverted to Cybertronian format other than the bare minimum needed to physically encode the data. Silvertower recognized the syntax on some of the file names from other Earth-serving mechs who had donated unconverted files in human programming formats: that was a text file, that was audio, that was video. He translated some of the directory and file names absently. Music. Works of literature and art. Texts on every subject imaginable. Science, technology, medicine, geography, planetary information. Historical, linguistic, and cultural information on thousands of linguistic groups. Philosophy, psychology, and what looked like an entertainment GOLDMINE to mine for more... His terminal was still counting files when he turned his head, slowly, to stare at Firebrand. "You. This. You have all of this? INTACT?"

Firebrand nodded, watching him uncertainly. "I...kind of backed up the Internet before it collapsed. I know it's a lot, if you're tight on space. Believe me, I know it's a lot. It's taking up an incredible chunk of my 'banks and-"

Silvertower made a completely undignified squeal of vocalizer feedback at that. "You're carrying all this around in your MEMORY?"

Firebrand recalibrated her optics in surprise. "Well...yeah. I didn't have anywhere else to put it until we got to Cybertron, and since then I've been so busy that I've just not had time to... Are you all right?"

"You. Are carrying." Silvertower glanced over at his terminal, which was STILL SCROLLING. "ZETTABYTES. Of priceless, kilivorn-old, one-of-a-kind xenocultural data. Including the entire history of an entire SPECIES. In your OWN DATABANKS. Where they could be lost forever to data corruption. Or a shuttle falling on you in the street. Or an energon line explosion. Random virus. Freak meteor strike." Primus only knew what she did (a check back to her ident actually linked her to the Prime's staff, Primus help him) that might be even MORE dangerous. Silvertower could only hope that he sounded more scandalized than censorious, but he was afraid that his glyphs gave him away.

Surprisingly, Firebrand smiled, slowly. There was relief in her tone, mischievous teasing in her glyphs. "If it makes you feel any better, if I survived the Decepticons AND Unicron, I'm pretty sure I'm safe. But yes. "

Silvertower scrambled to send a query to the Academy scheduling center, then to Lorekeeper to warn her that there was shortly going to be a truly obscene amount of data dumped in the primary archive input server. Pit, he might even have to move some of it out to a few of the accessory servers to keep it from overflowing... Silvertower stood at the grumpy but affirmative response. "Do you have time now? No, I don't care what you were going to do this afternoon. You DO have time now. Come on, there's a free hardline to the network down the hall."

Firebrand looked up at him as he paused by her chair, a presumptuous but UTTERLY NECESSARY hand curled around her arm to urge her up and prevent her from...he didn't even know. Walking out. Spontaneously reformatting. Something. Her expression was, for once, something he couldn't read, but she hid it after a moment anyway, bowing her head. Her sending was simple, underscored by superlative markers: Relief. Gratitude. Melancholy joy.

Silvertower made his fans still, calming himself forcibly in the face of her emotion. "Earth must have meant a great deal to you," he said, gently.

Firebrand nodded as she stood. She only came to his chest, but he had learned long ago that size, like age, mattered little. Everyone carried with them the same strength and scars. And more, in her case. Honestly, ZETTABYTES...

::Yes,:: she sent simply, with no accessory glyphs at all. ::It did.::

* * *

><p>The light was turning the dark, hard gold of late, late afternoon by the time she left. Mikaela disliked hardline network connections. The protocols were uncomfortable, left her processor feeling queasy, and made her feel-more than anything else ever had, including writing her own programming-like a giant computer. The first few times she'd done it, she'd thought that her dislike was just unfamiliarity, but she'd been relieved to hear that others hated it just as much. Ratchet had, after a moment of thought, agreed with her analogy of it being like a gynecological exam: the same anatomy as sex but...without the fun.<p>

By the time she reached the Academy outskirts, most of the static haze of call-and-response had cleared, but she found herself idling at an intersection. She had notified Integrus she would be delayed, and he had been understanding, telling her that she should take as much time as she needed and actually meaning it. If anyone knew how much emotional baggage she had tied up in the history of Earth she'd been lugging around in her head, it was Integrus.

Sitting at an intersection in transportation form, Mikaela checked her schedule. Nothing, she was fairly sure, would blow up if she took the rest of the day off.

Sol was on the Academy campus. She could track him down after his classes if she put her mind to it. Neither of them had had time for more than a brief comm in nearly an orbital cycle. It was tempting, but she discarded that idea. She knew how much SHE wouldn't have liked it if one of her parents had showed up unannounced at her school.

Besides. Solaris was so YOUNG. She felt mopey and nostalgic (emo, she thought with some amusement), and she doubted he'd understand. In fact, of the mechs she suspected would, most of them were off-planet or just as busy as Integrus or had, like Ironhide and Ratchet, hied off to the other side of the planet into hopefully temporary retirement in the new settlements. That left...

Well. That was certainly an idea.

She turned onto the main highway headed out of the city.

Being a member of the Prime's staff had its privileges. One of them was a priority beacon that identified her as having the highest level security clearance on the planet. Mikaela was fairly sure that clearing the emergency lane so she could break all speed limits while playing hooky was not what the beacon was intended for, but it was certainly better than her taking out her odd mood on the rush-hour traffic jam.

Traffic trickled to barely anything as the highway passed the inhabited areas and entered the outlands. The road there had been cleared and vetted as stable but not much else, running through blocks of scaffold-shrouded reconstruction and then tracts of dark, crumbling ruins outlined by the setting sun. Mikaela came to an open stretch of road and floored it, shooting forward at her top speed. The joy of it washed away the remains of her bad mood, bringing back some of the happy relief she'd felt at Silvertower's excitement.

It had been a long time since Earth had been home, but he'd been right: it meant a lot to her. Even the languages she'd never learned to speak, the music she'd never liked, the people and events that she'd not agreed with. She'd kept it all, because she could. And because, in the end, she was the ONLY one who could.

She hadn't even fully deleted the data yet. Marked it, yes, as it had been copied to upload: keep this, trash this, archive this. The commands were all in her processor queue, but she was strangely reluctant to initiate them.

As the sun touched the horizon, she reached a section of city that had been nearly flattened by some ancient weapon. Buildings and roads had been reduced to intermittent piles of rubble and twisted metal. The side road she took, however, was relatively new and free of debris. Not to mention familiar, as was the sleek silver vehicle that raced up behind her halfway to her destination, pulling even with her front end and revving its engine. Mikaela laughed. ::Sure you want to? I had an upgrade last deca-cycle...::

Sideswipe pulled a bit ahead, the glyph he sent back amused and taunting. ::Show me.::

Mikaela laughed again and obligingly redlined her engine, the two of them racing side-by-side down the sunwashed road. She lost, as she usually did, but it was a much closer race than usual, enough to draw a small cheering crowd as they shot into the lot to the side of the homestead. Sideswipe transformed and crouched, skidding toward the crowd. He was promptly tackled with a horrific clatter by three excited sparklings before he even came to a stop. He mock-growled as much as they did as they tried to bring him down.

Mikaela rolled to a more sedate stop, fielding a slew of cheerful welcomes as another few sparklings (she identified Mudrunner and Suretread, but there was a small blue sparkling that she didn't even recognize) ran past her to join in the game of Attack the Sideswipe. Mikaela transformed, shaking her head at the flailing pile of sparkling and warrior and rolling her optics over at the yellow mech leaning against the doorway to the house. "Honestly, you'd think you two were raising wolves."

Sunstreaker shrugged. "Nothing wrong with wolves. Smart and strong and not much messed with them."

"True." She leaned against the wall, watching as the sun finally set and the shadows fell hard over the landscape. The view wasn't what she'd call picturesque, but it was constantly getting better. The twins were part of a restoration program where they got space and materials for their own home in exchange for clearing the surrounding area. In the orbital cycles since she'd last been here, she could see the progress they'd made, mostly on a particularly ugly tower that blocked the sun for most of the day. Sunstreaker took that tower as a personal affront and had declared war on it.

The house, too, had been expanded, the shell of the original building strengthened and much of the cosmetic damage repaired. Granted, there was some NEW damage, but that was all understandingly sparkling-height. Speaking of... "Who's the new one?" Mikaela asked. "The little blue guy?"

"Springload," Sunstreaker said. "Watch."

The scuffle had become fierce, Sideswipe holding his own but the sparklings not giving up and devising more elaborate and devious tactics. Then Springload, after being carefully shook off Sideswipe's leg, made an impressive standing leap to the top of his head and wrapped his arms around Sideswipe's primary optics, crowing in delight.

Mikaela laughed. "I see." She vented a long sigh, the tension of the day floating away.

Sunstreaker shifted, gently rolling a balled-up, giggling Suretread back into the fray with one foot. "Why're you here?" he asked, with characteristic bluntness but curiousity instead of annoyance.

She leaned her head back against the wall. Why, indeed. Now that she was here, head a bit clearer, she wondered if she really wanted to talk about anything. And really, Sunstreaker wasn't the one of the pair to try it with. It wasn't that he didn't care, just that he didn't always understand. "Just had a day and needed to unwind. Wanted to go for a drive and ended up here. I hope you don't mind me just showing up."

Sunstreaker turned to look at her, sending her a familiar derisive shorthand for "don't be an idiot", followed by a change of subject modifier and others for military support, the sign for found-kin, and a sharp interrogative. Sunstreaker-to-Cybertronian translation: "do I need to beat someone up?"

Mikaela smiled. That was what she liked about Sunstreaker. It was always good to have someone who'd help you hide the bodies. She sent a negation and returned the "support" glyph. _Not now, but I know you will, thanks._ After a moment, she added on a glyph combination of "thought", "simple/clean", and "goal/objective" that Sunstreaker used himself: _I don't want to think too much._

Sunstreaker sent back a firm, understanding affirmative, and they went back to watching the scuffle.

Sideswipe finally stood, one sparkling hanging from each arm and Springload dangling around his neck. "All right, that's enough. Inside, kibble. Obviously we need another lesson on group tactics."

Several of the kids cheered and dropped down to run or glide ahead into the house. Sideswipe brought up the rear, thumping his twin on the shoulder and getting a light punch in the chestplates in reply. The hum of the comm between them was expected, their sync as familiar as the rough-housing.

Sideswipe looked at Mikaela for a long moment, then said, "Stay. For the night, at least."

It was simple, honest, accompanied by glyphs for found-family, aid, safety, friendly desire.

Mikaela found herself smiling. She knew how this went. They'd go in and sit, and the twins would give the kids a lesson in whatever tactics they'd failed to execute upon Sideswipe's return. The adults would trade gossip and sitreps over energon, and the sparklings would interrupt with stories of their own adventures: a neat structure they'd found, a warren of tunnels they'd mapped, a particularly crushing wargame victory/defeat, perhaps the showing of some relic they'd found that day and wanted identified. Eventually, the kidlets would wind down and be herded off for recharge. The twins and she would then talk of anything they didn't want the kids to hear: the latest Quintesson movements, energon price fluctuations, deaths among old friends and enemies, and, of course, war stories, like any three old soldiers would tell. Maybe she'd tell them what she'd been doing that day. Maybe not.

They'd not so much ask as herd her to bed: a ridiculously easy ambush to spot that she would cheerfully neglect to escape. Much, much later, she'd be unsure if their smug glyphs meant that there'd be one or more sparklings running around their homestead in a few months or not. She'd vent in exasperation at them, joking that they didn't HAVE to try to repopulate the whole of the planet all by themselves, and they'd laugh and needle her for being a human about the issue, and she'd laugh, responding that no human could have blown their circuits like THAT, and they'd say that that was the point, idiot.

They'd fall into recharge in a tangle of familiar, overheated limbs that she'd have to extricate herself from in the morning when the sparklings burst in to sneak attack them.

And life would go on.

The twins were still looking at her, heads tilted at the exact same inquisitive angle.

She brought up the commands in her processor queue: keep this, trash this, archive this. She set them all to run.

* * *

><p><strong>Notes:<strong>

Mikaela is long-time friends with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, who (through events that haven't been written yet but which begin with her learning more than Ironhide would have liked of her fighting style from Sideswipe), regard her as a good friend and an almost-sibling. This is set at a particularly settled period in the twins' lives. Fear not for the terror twins' fierce reputations, though. After raising a ridiculously varied clutch of sparklings, they get bored and hie off to go blow up Quintessons and sharkticons for awhile, among other things.


	5. The Parting Glass

**Notes:**

This story is set around ~650,000AD. Cybertron is rebuilt and is well into a new age of peace, prosperity, and population growth. Mikaela is working as an aide to Integrus Prime and is known to most Cybertronians as "Firebrand".

Integrus Prime attempted to unify Cybertron by erasing the faction lines. But some lines mean too much to be erased, and sometimes the best way to deal with a painful past is to face it head-on...

Please see the timeline in the first chapter of Warrior Goddess 1 if you'd like more info on how all this comes about (warning, the timeline gives spoilers for the entire Warrior Goddess story arc.)

* * *

><p>Sunstreaker was not the most forthcoming of mechs, but nonetheless Mikaela was surprised at the level of clampdown that surrounded the war memorial project. It was her own fault, she supposed. After throwing her support behind the general proposal and watching Sunstreaker's interest with interest, she'd (for once) NOT been assigned to the oversight committee. And so, she'd not seen the actual design proposal and was now on the wrong side of the same veil of secrecy as the rest of the public.<p>

It was annoying, because she was REALLY curious. Curious enough to sidle up to anyone involved and ask some leading questions. Not that it'd worked. Integrus and Sunstreaker himself were obviously dead ends, the collaborating artists and historians were all for the secrecy to begin with, Starscream enjoyed keeping secrets on principle, and the other workers were too intimidated and/or terrified of the Prime and/or Starscream and/or Sunstreaker to risk stepping out of line.

Even Sideswipe had just laughed. "Are you kidding? He'd rip me apart and you'd never find the pieces. No way."

And so, she was just as eager to see the final piece as all the others gathered at the dedication. Which was, by the number of frames filling the plaza and the buildings surrounding it, just about EVERYONE.

It made sense. The memorial itself had been a somewhat delicate topic. Integrus had spent a lot of time and verbiage since becoming Prime on forcing through the idea that there were no factions anymore and thus former faction or the lineage of your creators was a non-issue. In reality, as Starscream had both eloquently and bluntly argued, one couldn't make something so important go away by merely not talking about it, and furthermore, it was a source of pride, a badge of survival, and a debt owed to the dead. To attempt to erase that was to attempt to negate all the sacrifices that had been made on both sides.

His argument had been eloquent, even for Starscream. Mikaela had also learned a few new swear glyphs in the process.

It had been a slow turn (like it always was, when changing Integrus' mind), but eventually the Prime had agreed that rejecting the proposal would create more problems than it would solve. The fact that it'd been proposed by a bi-factional group of Council representatives had likely tipped the balance. Obviously, this was an idea whose time had come.

Once it'd been approved, suddenly everyone had an opinion. Even with the bidding artists and the designs kept sealed, the whole process had been a bit of a spectacle. The incessant public inquiry had been part of the reason Sunstreaker had demanded a strict public blackout on the project. Mikaela was fairly certain that part of it was him not wanting to deal with the public second-guessing him, but, as they stood on the balcony overlooking the plaza, waiting for the unveiling, she couldn't help but notice that Sunstreaker looked smug and a bit eager. He was much less the brutal frontliner he'd once been and much more the vain artist. As a certain human pop diva had once sung, he lived for the applause-plause and was obviously expecting his due.

At the appointed time, Integrus spoke. It was a rather standard speech about the courage and sacrifice of those who give their sparks for the greater good, one that Mikaela had given comments on beforehand and thus felt no real need to listen to. Her optics, like those of everyone else in the plaza, were locked on the monument itself: a tall, thin, obelisk-like thing, if the draped form was anything to go by. Then Integrus finally stopped talking, and the drape fell away.

It was, indeed, an obelisk: a pillar tapering slightly at the tip, with each of its four faces a holoscreen, all bound together in a heavy, matte, silvertone frame etched with glyphs that were not only beautiful but no doubt significant. Mikaela zoomed in and caught variants on "warrior" and "sacrifice" shining in the weak sunlight before the monument powered up.

From far enough away, they would have looked like just pretty lights, a shifting pattern of subtle gold rising from the bottom of the pillar. It took her a moment to realize that they were glyphs. Names. It took her another moment to recognize a cluster of them: an Autobot gestalt that had died in one of the last battles of the Unicron War. Then, a ventilation later: _Bumblebee, Laserbeak_... Autobot and Decepticon names rising together as the monument scrolled backwards through the Unicron War.

::Did...is it going to list ALL of them?:: she commed Sunstreaker incredulously.

His glyphs were smug. ::Why do you think I needed all those historians?::

The names flew fast and thick when they reached large battles, and there was a collective invent as the name _Optimus Prime_ scrolled past, nothing in size or color or script to make it any different than the thousands of other names accompanying it.

::Sunstreaker...:: Mikaela said, optics glued on the names, something twisting in her spark as they got to the beginning of the Unicron War, but she lost track of the thread as the names _Jazz, Blaster_, and _Jolt_ scrolled into view. Designation glyphs that tagged clusters of memories she'd not thought of in vorns and vorns...

She must not have been the only one. The plaza was silent as the glyphs trailed off, the sides of the obelisk dark for a long moment, just long enough for Mikaela to steel herself because of course next would be-

_Megatron._

And then, following on his heels, names Mikaela knew well. Autobots she had known, in her first thousand years, Decepticons she had killed herself, their names sometimes known beforehand and others only mentioned to her later. The time period spent on Earth was a brief, painful twist of the knife (Skids, Mudflap, _Bluestreak_) and then gone, the chronology flashing past her own birth and hurtling into the heart of the Great War.

The glyphs rose like firecrackers, each small battle a staccato and distinct burst. There were no place names given, and Mikaela had to admire Sunstreaker's instinct, because no one who had been in the war needed them. They knew. They remembered. Mikaela wasn't familiar enough with the history to know the specifics, but she knew the gist of that period: space stations destroyed, space battles involving handfuls of destroyers, the slow death of the colonies as they were drawn into the War. And as all that trailed off, the tension in the plaza rose, tens of thousands of processors knowing what was coming.

Hell's Point. Polyhex. Simanzi.

The pillar exploded into light, brighter than Cybertron's far-away sun, the entire plaza lit by the names of the dead.

Mikaela exvented, feeling something of a reprieve. The sheer, horrifying enormity of it was not lost on her, but for her it was not personal. Instead, she watched the remaining Cybertronians grieve as the light of millions upon millions of names reflected off their plating, skating fast and thick over the monument's surface.

The audience's collective EM roiled and throbbed. Pain, mostly. Pain and horror and sadness. Mikaela saw it on faceplates, in the audience members who hid their faces in their hands, in those who were driven to their knees by emotion but who still stared up at the memorial, apparently unable to look away.

And the pillar scrolled on...and on...and on... A beautiful, bittersweet, and pitiless testament to all that Cybertron had lost.

::It's beautiful,:: Mikaela finally sent to Sunstreaker. ::You sadistic fragger.::

Sunstreaker tilted his helm toward her, his smile utterly humorless. ::We fucked up. We deserve to suffer for it.::

This from the mech who'd done the glyphwork on all those names. A mech who'd sent a lot of those sparks to the Well. A mech who was the very embodiment of Integrus' concerns about unification, a hardened warrior who made grudge-carrying an artform...and yet he'd created this. Something that didn't point fingers but instead cut off everyone at the knees, 'Bots and 'Cons alike.

Optimus, Mikaela thought suddenly, would have approved.

::Will it always do this?:: she asked. ::The scrolling.::

::Yeah. This is sped up, because we wanted to show the whole thing. At normal speed, it'll take most of a cycle to go through the whole list. Mechs can list anyone the historians didn't catch, have them added. We'll release the list, the timing, so mecha can come visit and see whatever they want to see.::

::I like that.:: She did. It made it special. Personal. Not just a thing to see, not just some bland and general words, but your friends' names. She could see herself coming by, to see Bluestreak, Jazz, Jolt, Optimus... This monument was likely the only memorial that they and many, many others would ever have.

Sunstreaker looked down into the plaza, then up at his handiwork. Designations scrolled implacably on, rising and fading like dying sparks. ::'Til all are one.::

* * *

><p><em>But since it falls unto my lot<em>  
><em>That I should rise and you should not<em>  
><em>I'll gently rise and I'll softly call<em>  
><em>Good night and joy be with you all...<em>  
>- Ed Sheeran, "The Parting Glass"<p> 


End file.
